Written by Olivia Day, Daily Mail Australia
Updated at 02:04 on February 29, 2024, 02:04 on February 29, 2024
Karl Stefanovic’s interview with NBA hero Scottie Pippen featured a heartwarming moment after he made a big admission about Michael Jordan It went viral quickly.
Pippen seemed to have forgotten his longstanding feud with the 61-year-old when he acknowledged his former Chicago Bulls teammate as the greatest player in basketball history.
“It’s hard to compare, but from the perspective of you standing and playing, is Michael the best, the greatest of all time?” Stefanovic asked.
“Of course, I mean, you look at the MVPs he was able to win,” Pippen told Channel 9’s “Today” show on Tuesday.
“I think it all comes from our success as a team,” he continued. “Obviously someone is going to take those honors home. Yeah, he’s definitely the greatest player in basketball.”
Last year, the six-time NBA champion gave a very different answer when asked the same question by former teammate Stacey King.
“LeBron (James) is going to be the greatest statistical figure in the history of basketball,” Pippen said on the King’s Gimme The Hot Sauce podcast in May.
“And there’s no comparison to him. Not any. So does that make him the greatest player of all time? I’ll leave that question up for debate because I don’t believe there’s a great player because our game is a A team game, one player cannot do this.
He also told the podcast that Jordan was a “terrible player” before joining the Bulls.
“I watched Jordan play before I came to play for the Bulls. You guys watched him play. He was a terrible player. “He was terrible to play with,” he said.
“He was one-on-one and he was shooting the ball really bad and all of a sudden we became a team and we started winning and everyone forgot who he was.”
The “Today” host asked Pippen for his impressions of ESPN’s “The Last Dance” documentary series, which chronicled the rise of Jordan and the Chicago Bulls.
Pippen was reportedly angry about how he was portrayed on the show, and his relationship with Jordan suffered as a result.
He surprised basketball fans on Tuesday by praising the documentary series.
“I think it’s special,” Pippen said. “I think this is a special moment for us to really relive some of the greatest moments in basketball history. More importantly, a chance to see what team basketball is really like.
“I think during the pandemic, with everyone sitting at home, this is more of an educational tool for people to see how good the game can be if you play it the right way. If you can share basketball, there’s no limit to what you can achieve The goal.”
Pippen had previously criticized the series, saying the Bulls’ success in the 1990s was attributed to Jordan while his teammates were painted as lesser players.
“They celebrated Michael Jordan but didn’t give enough credit to me and my proud teammates,” Pippen, 58, wrote in his 2021 memoir “Unguarded.”
“Michael should take a large part of the blame. The producers gave him editorial control over the final product. Otherwise the file would not have been released. “He was the lead and the director. “
As a result, Pippen claimed, the documentary felt inauthentic.
“I think that’s not that accurate in terms of really defining one of basketball’s greatest eras and what two of its greatest players accomplished — one could even put that aside and say the greatest team It’s time,” Pippen told The Guardian in December 2020.
“I don’t think those things stand out in the documentary. I think it’s more of Michael trying to elevate himself and get glory. I think it’s counterproductive in a way, too, because people get a chance to see Michael’s character.”
Complicating matters further is the romantic relationship between Pippen’s ex-wife, Larsa, 49, and Jordan’s 32-year-old son Marcus.
It is understood that the couple began dating in 2022 and broke up earlier this year.
Pippen and Larsa were married for nearly 20 years, had four children, and divorced in 2021.
Pippen will be in Australia this month to attend the country’s National Basketball League awards banquet and later join former teammates Horace Grant and Luke Longley on a speaking tour.
The Hall of Famer was a member of all six Bulls championship teams.